Florida National Guard Fights Fires Across The State

May 18, 1985|By United Press International.

Florida`s National Guard was mobilized Friday to battle 50 wildfires raging across the state that forced the evacuation of seven areas, caused a 200-mile blackout, burned homes and woodlands and killed at least two firefighters.

Florida forestry officials said fires whipped by 40 mile-an-hour winds were blazing out of control in 20 counties ranging from the Miami area in southern Florida to the northwest Florida Panhandle.

One fireman suffered a fatal heart attack Friday while battling a blaze in the Panhandle, officials said, and another firefighter employed by a timber company was killed in a blaze late Thursday. Two other forest rangers were overcome by smoke but saved themselves by seeking shelter in a ``fire tent.``

National Guard trucks were called to Flagler County on the northeast Florida coast to help evacuate people in Bunnell, where firefighters were battling two blazes that covered 10,000 acres.

At least 16 homes have burned in wildfires, but forestry officials said there were so many fires burning in such widespread areas it was almost impossible to keep an accurate count of the damage.

About 200 people from the Palm Coast and the Plantation Pines subdivision, where at least nine homes burned to the ground, were evacuated to a school and community centers in the Daytona Beach area.

At sundown, Gov. Bob Graham mobilized units of the National Guard, put the state`s Division of Emergency Management on alert and ordered the Department of Transportation to lend trucks and equipment to firefighters.

``About an hour ago the governor called out the National Guard to assist local counties fighting fires throughout Florida,`` said Graham spokesman Steve Hull. ``He specifically ordered that National Guard troops and helicopters could be used.``

At least two shelters were set up in Flagler County, and five busloads of people were taken to the Flagler Beach police station.